Apple’s ongoing Education media event located at NYC’s Guggenheim Museum is all about learning, and facing the challenges in the field of education today.

Apple unveiled some slides that paint a pretty startling picture about the state of the United States’ educational system when compared to other places in the world, citing overflowing class sizes and lack of enough textbooks, among other dire problems.

With all of this in mind, Apple is trying to help — and it’s no surprise that the iPad is at the center of two initiatives — one of them is to reinvent textbooks. iBooks 2 is at the center of the reinvention process…

Features of iBooks 2

Books feature dramatic intro movies

Use multitouch gestures to peruse the books

Rich engaging features like 3D models

Interactivity

Authors have total freedom in terms of laying out text and graphics

Rotating in portrait mode retains traditional book layout

Index links in back of book

Interactive glossary

Quick jumping to specific page numbers

Highlighting, note taking and instant feedback

Integrates directly with iBookstore

“If you’re a freshman, you only have a 70% chance of graduating.”

“These teachers need help — we try to figure out what we can do at Apple to help.”

It looks like Apple is really serious about improving the education system in the United States, and eventually worldwide with iBooks 2. This looks extremely promising, and no doubt harkens back to Steve Jobs’ wishes of doing more for education through technology.